The Reason
by StarfireFowl
Summary: Of all the places Harry thought he would find Draco, he never would have guessed him to be there. DracoHarry


A/N: My first HarryDraco fic, inspired by the vision in my head of shirtless Draco Malfoy. (What a nice thought.) Named after one of my least favorite songs (Hoobastank's "The Reason".)

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They'd been thinking about it for weeks. If the other one would bring it up, then all other banter would be pushed aside. They needed to justify the actions which some would call insane. Sneaking around with someone who'd once been an enemy wasn't exactly normal during this new war. But ever since that walk, it had been hard to keep away.

zzz

2 Weeks Prior  
The second week of summer.

Harry had felt so trapped at Privet Drive. He couldn't fight. All he was allowed to do was sit in his room and behave like a good little boy. It was day eight and he was already sick of this summer. The wizard didn't care if he couldn't apparate yet. He was getting out of there no matter what.

His brain suddenly clicked on. A walk! The Dursleys certainly couldn't stop him from walking over into the more crowded areas of the town. Any news at all would be appreciated.

So the boy who lived ran out of the Dursleys, happy to get his first breath of the humid summer air. Without any trouble from anyone, Harry continued down the street, a smile on his face. The smile faded four blocks over when he reached a street full of muggles.

He now wished he had thought his plan through. What was he supposed to do now? The muggle shop would only bore him and he brought no money for anything. How was he supposed to find any wizarding information anyway in a muggle neighborhood. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Two more blocks and he was still out of luck. So instead of walking any farther, he sat down on a bus bench.

He watched the muggles fly past, obviously not seeing him. They all had their own lives. The savior of the wizarding world meant nothing to them. His eyes drifted to the other side of the street, watching the traffic there. It struck him very odd that there was a dark shape behind it all.

Crossing the street, the figure came into focus. Huddled and asleep on the corner was a tall young man wearing all black. In contradiction to this clothes was ghastly pale skin and blinding blonde hair. He didn't even have to see the stranger's face to know it was Draco Malfoy.

Yet, Harry couldn't be sure. The last time Harry had seen Draco was the night Dumbledore had died. This Draco was dressed in filthy clothes and beside an un-polished shoe was a small hat filled with coins.

"Draco?" Harry gasped. The figure's head drifted up from his knees. Harry was shocked by the changes in his once nemesis. Draco's face looked so tired and his eyes... they weren't cold any more. They were sub-zero.

"What do you want, Potter." He spat. It was Malfoy, alright. Even underneath a new exterior.

"Are you alright?"

"Just dandy."

"You don't look it."

"I was being sarcastic."

"Oh." Harry didn't know what else to say. Of one thing he was sure, Draco needed help in some way. "Why are you on the streets?"

"My parents kicked me out. Banished, actually. Wasn't a good enough Death Eater for them." Draco glared at the air, his mind in his memories.

"You mean to tell me you've been living on the streets since that night?" All joking and mockery had left Harry's voice. How could that have happened to someone who'd been living so comfortably? Why would anyone do that to someone as confused as the blonde?

"Yup."

"None of your friends could give you a place to stay?"

"When they say banished, they mean banished."

"Well, then...you're coming with me." Harry decided, extending a hand.

"No."

"My aunt and uncle wouldn't even notice."

Malfoy snickered. "Your aunt and uncle? I'm not staying with you."

"You don't have to stay. You can just eat some decent food and clean up..." Malfoy kept laughing.

"Yeah right, Potter."

"Someone ought to help you. Right now it seems I'm the only friend you have."

"After being a life long enemy?" The blonde wasn't laughing anymore.

"You didn't kill him. You're not my enemy anymore." Silently, Draco stood up, taking his hat with him. Harry smiled, watching the blonde strut forward. The attitude was still clearly a part of Draco, as it had always been.

"Which way's your house anyway?"

zzz

Malfoy was surprised by the muggleness of the house. This was Harry Potter, the boy who was about to triumph over Voldemort a second time. Yet he lived in the middle of _nowhere_.

"A word of warning about my aunt and uncle. They're a little bit..." Only Harry didn't get to finish his sentence. Interrupting him was a very annoyed yell from a man in Potter's doorway.

"Potter! What do you think you're doing? Leaving the house? And that boy better not be one of your bloody magical friends or I will personally send him back to wherever hell he came from." The man was a funny shade of purple by now. At least when Draco's dad got angry, he simply grew paler. The thought made Draco sad. He was still talking about his father like nothing had happened.

"He's not. He's an old friend from school. _Normal_ school." Harry snapped, shoving past the man. Draco began to see Harry in a whole new light. To spend the first eleven years of his life stuck with that horrible man? It was almost as terrible as being banished from a family you loved.

Harry led him up a small flight of stairs to a tiny bedroom he could only guess to be Harry's. The room was so un-personalized, he couldn't really tell. The bespectacled boy sat on the edge of the bed, Draco sitting on the floor across from him.

"I'll get you some food. You can shower if you like. The bathroom's two doors down. And there should be a spare set of clothes in there," Harry explained. Draco nodded, relieved. Warm food sound so good.

The blonde stood up again, about to leave the room. But instead of leaving, he turned to say, "Thank you."

zzz

Having Draco stay with him wasn't so bad. Harry had thought it was terrible at first, but after a week with Draco sleeping on the floor of his room and no Dursleys noticing, it started to get easier. The two no longer regarded each other as enemies.

With the Dursleys all out one Saturday morning, both Harry and Draco escaped the scorching heat and boredom by going outside. No one in the neighborhood would notice them anyway, no matter how nosy. No one else care about those two in those parts.

"So what do you feel like doing now that we're free?" Harry asked, taking a seat next to one of the Dursleys' hideous bushes.

"_We're_ free? You try being cooped up in that closet you call a room while everyone else is at dinner!"

"Stop complaining. You like the silence."

"Silence? Your damn uncle freaks over everything. And don't even get me started with that idiot Dudley."

"He is an idiot." Harry laughed.

"We agree on something." Draco grinned, watching sweat drip down his own arms. He was glad he wasn't on the streets still. He felt disgusting from being outside for five minutes. Five days would be awful. It was then that an idea struck Malfoy. "Do you have a garden hose?"

"A what?"

"A garden hose."

"Malfoy knows his muggle tools. Now that's funny."

"Do you or do you not?"

"We do."

"Good." Draco smirked. "That should cool us off."

"I don't get what you're saying." Harry looked genuinely confused. Obviously he'd been deprived of water activities as a kid.

"Just show me where it is and I'll explain." Draco sighed, following Harry's finger to see the green coil behind the bushes. He adjusted it to spray water, then aimed it directly at Harry with a grin on his face.

Draco could only laugh at the shocked reaction on Harry's face. He had expected Harry to clean off his glasses before launching a counter-attack. Instead, Harry dove to grab the garden hose from the blonde. Harry's revenge came sooner than Draco thought it would as the icy spray hit him in the face.

Harry put the hose down, cleaning off his glasses on his shirt. As he put them back on, he was surprised to see Draco peeling off his shirt. Harry could only gawk at the thin, muscled body in front of him. He hadn't been expecting that.

Feeling awkward, Harry pulled off his own shirt. The sun was already starting to dry his pale skin. Compared to the way the water glistened off of Draco's body, he must have looked so pathetic.

Harry still had possession of the hose and staring at Draco wasn't going to cool him off much. So instead, he sprayed the water at the blonde, finally catching him off guard. Draco lunged at him, but instead of getting a hold of the hose, he landed on top of Harry.

Draco had Harry pinned, the hose flopping around like a fish out of water besides them. Their eyes locked, their faces inches away.

"That wasn't supposed to happen, was it?" Harry asked, his heart racing.

"How do you know?" Draco's lips curled into a smirk, making Harry uncomfortable. What had he just gotten into? His discomfort was only added to as Draco leaned down and pressed his lips to Harry's.

Harry's eyes grew almost inhumanly wide before he felt himself falling into the kiss. His whole body relaxed, his hands on Draco's bare back. Draco's hands cupped Harry's face, his tongue finding its way into Harry's mouth. For the entire time Draco had been at Harry's, since that first day when he'd shown such extreme kindness to him, Draco had been waiting for the moment. What better way to do it then by acting on something that had been building since year one. What other reason did Draco have for being 'enemies' with Harry? He offered to help him on their first day, but it turned out quite the opposite.

The two pulled away, the head and lack of oxygen finally affecting them. Neither said anything, their eyes saying everything. Harry had never really thought of Draco that way before, but now it was clear that he'd never hated him. There was only room in his heart for the hatred of one person- Voldemort.

"Cooled down yet?" Draco breathed heavily, his hair slicked back to his head by the torrent of water that had hit him earlier.

"Not really. I'm still fairly warm." Harry grinned, pulling Draco's lips back to his own.

zzz

After the second week, the Dursleys had no knowledge of the extra mouth they had been feeding. Draco no longer had to sleep on the floor though, Harry offering to share the bed with him after their kiss. The two began to rely on each other and joke like they'd been friends since their first meeting. It was only after that second week that Harry noticed something sad in Draco's thoughts. His suspicions were justified when he found himself alone in bed and a shadowy figure at the window.

He got out of bed, still sweating from the extreme heat. Even being shirtless didn't cool him off. Harry walked up to the figure, wrapping his arms around them and kissing their neck. Draco smiled, his eyes staring off at the normalness of Privet Drive.

"Too warm?" Harry whispered, his breath at Draco's neck.

"No. Just a little concerned. I don't think I can stay here much longer." Draco sighed, leaving in to Harry's grasp.

"I know. Next week we're going to leave."

"We're?"

"We're. Come with me to Godric's Hollow." Harry kissed where his breath had hit the boy, feeling Draco tense a bit.

"Why? Why did you take me in that day? Why any of this?" With every word, Draco's voice fell fainter. His last word had been no more than a whisper.

Harry simply smiled and kissed the base of his neck. "Simple. There are no reasons for love."

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A/N2 : Reviews are welcome. Flames are not. Constructive criticism would make my day. Thanks for reading. 


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